Improve the SEO of your images
Currently the images have gained undeniable relevance on the internet. An example of this are "memes" or infographics, images that communicate much faster than any text and achieve a greater impact on the user. In this way, apply SEO in images is presented as a good opportunity to gain web positioning.
Images can be the gateway to our website since Google and its algorithms track these to offer them in its search results. On the other hand, images occupy a high percentage of our content on the web, so its proper management can considerably improve the web performance, both at the load level and to enhance our positioning in images.
Position images on Google
When we carry out searches on Google we have different types of results: web links, images, videos, shopping... Therefore, we can appear in the first positions of results in images on google in a natural way. Nowadays, especially in mobile view, we usually see images at the top of the results lists, so it creates a good opportunity to position our images. At the same time, applying techniques SEO on our images we will make it easier for Google to track them.
Operational SEO in pictures
Some of the problems that we usually find in the images are usually:
- Image Folder Organization
- Images weight
- Image metadata
- Design: format and resolution
how-to video SEO in pictures
Here is an example of how to treat images with seo in WordPress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH9__L4lD-I
Apply SEO in images in 10 steps
Before uploading your images to the website, we recommend a series of actions that will save you a lot of time and headaches.
1. Proper file name
Try to name the images with a descriptive name (and only) using the main keyword of the content you are working on. Forget using long and ambiguous names like asiryoihsckasjdhasd.jpg o photo1.jpg. Instead you can use names like seo-in pictures. Try to be clear and concise.
2. Suitable image format
Use standard formats like PNG, JPG, or GIF. Currently, Google invites you to use formats of new generation image such as PEG2000, JPEG, XR and WebP, which optimize compression with less quality loss. Choose the suitable dimensions for the different versions in which the image is served on the web.
WEB images
WebP is an image format developed by Google that allows you to compress images with minimal loss of quality. There are really differences in terms of color depth but minimal in quality and general result. Being a state-of-the-art format, there are not many editors to open it, but there are plugins, for example, for WP. To be able to visualize this type of images we will use Google Chrome.
In this link you have a image to webp converter
3. Reduce weight and image compression
Compress but without going overboard. Compressing images that appear in a post is not the same as compressing the header image of the Home Page. Try to be proportional.
The less the images weigh, the better the loading rate and better user experience. Also, search engines appreciate the reduced weight on images and improve page crawling by spending less time reading. The final weight of the image is influenced by the image quality and dimensions. Try to optimize this aspect, do not use images of excessive quality on a regular basis on sites where the display of the image does not require it.
It is essential to respect the recommended maximum weight, below 100kb. For this there are a large number of tools such as:
To find out the weight you can see it directly on the file (right mouse button / properties). You can also track your website with Screaming Frog to have a list of all the images on the web with the information of each of them
4. Indicate the dimensions of the image
When more sugar is sweeter and Google likes that we give it as much information as possible from all the resources that we offer on the web. This way Google will have more information about your images and it will be easier for you to catalog them. Try to use exact dimensions so as not to depend on re-scaling and thus not depend on framework who you work with. A suitable tool for dimension adjustment can be Befunky.
5. Image Title
Correctly use the HTML tag title, this is the name that users will see when hovering over the image. Similarly, use a suitable title and include keywords or related terms.
6. Alt Text: or alternative text
It is a fundamental tag to identify images by reading metadata and thanks to this tag we can indicate more information to browsers. It serves so that Google knows what the image is about since the algorithm cannot analyze the content by pixels (for now). It is useful to be interpreted in accessibility (translate atl text to voice for blind people) and of course in usability, since if it does not load the image (poor coverage areas) at least we can see in the text atl text What is that image about? It is convenient to use keywords also in this HTML tag and to be concise when describing the content of the image. Mainly we will focus on offering additional content to the image by filling in the fields title y Description y alt text, trying to include the main keyword or synonyms.
7. Description
Same as with tag title, you can use the tag longdesc to provide more information for search engines.
8. Image Context
It is important to locate a image within appropriate content. The more relationship the image has with the content where it is located, the better our positioning will be. Surround the image with related content, being the theme of the content where this image appears, since this will provide greater semantic value for the tracking engines, in addition to adequately completing the information for the user.
9. Create an Images Sitemap
With tools like Screaming Frog, we can create unique maps for images. sending this Image Sitemap to the Google index through Search Console we will facilitate the image tracing.
10. Do not post third party images
Do not use linked images from other websites. In this way we will avoid 40X errors or unnecessary redirections. What happens if they delete that image or change its directory? What if the image they offer us has an inappropriate size or weight? Well, the load of the resource would be slower, our framework you would have to re-scale the image (longer load time) and of course we don't want 40X errors that we can't control.
For image edition we can use any photo retouching tool like Photoshop. There are also other online tools such as Befunky, which allows you to edit images online In a simple way.
SEO on images in WordPress
WordPress features a tool in its main interface for managing images. is the known media library. In it we can upload, delete or edit images from our website.
The tool is very basic but it allows us to manage images in a simple way. Obviously, in many cases we need to expand the image management capabilities through plugins, but we will try to keep them as few as possible.
The main thing is to have our library organized, so we must always use descriptive, short names for our images that include the main keyword of the content or synonyms.
Organize all your images in the same directory so that you can always have all your images easily located.
WordPress Image Plugins
It is common to find a lot of information about plugins to improve the SEO in images in WP but the truth is that, if we follow the 10 recommendations above, we should not need almost any. One of the main errors that we usually deal with on a daily basis is the use of unnecessary plugins, as long as we have done an adequate treatment of images.
However, below we tell you about the plugins that we currently use in Millennials Consulting for image processing.
Enable Media Replace
Very useful plugin to replace images from the media library.
BJ Lazy Load
Activate the "lazy loading of images" favoring the fast loading of our web page.
Optimizer.oi
Automatically compress images as we upload them to the media library. Use a lossy algorithm.
Tools to improve image positioning
One of the great discoveries of the last year has been the appearance of tools that help us to index and improve the positioning of our images, as in the case of CTRBOX. This app works in such a way that it can record the evolution of the positioning of our images in the search results as well as helping us to improve the positions in the Google rankings.
In the following example, you can see how in just one month of testing we managed to position an image in the top 3 of Google.
SEO and Geolocation of images
Geolocating images consists of adding a series of geoposition metadata to them to offer more information to tracking robots. As we already know, Google is capable of track image information so by providing position data we can improve our SEO Location.
Next, let's see how add this metadata to our images starting tool ToolGeo Img in 3 simple steps.
- Drag an image onto the blue box.
- Select the position cursor within the map on the place you want.
- Enter metadata such as the name or description in the lower fields and download the image.
As we see below, if we click on the properties of the image, we see that these metadata now appear.
Conclusions
It is undeniable that image optimization improves the positioning and loading speed of our website and that most of the time we are going to use images in our content. If we don't take care of them from the beginning and we don't follow a clear methodology, we will have a mess of images that is difficult to manage, as well as losing a good opportunity to position them in Google.
For this reason, we recommend that you organize your images before uploading them to the web and routinely apply image optimization improvements.
Tools SEO with whom we work
Fonts
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-images?hl=es
